Estel | First Birthday - Kristen Weaver Photography

In all fairness, I don’t photograph many events (I have some pretty talented associates that take those over for me! ;)) But there are a handful of people that I absolutely will not say no to :)

Meet my hair-guru-goddess, Nicole Beth. We met back in 2006 (I think?) when I was a budding fashion photographer and she was pretty much still a hair goddess. Working together on shoots grew our friendship and now we’re pretty much besties (minus the fact that we live 2 hours away from each other). Every time people dig on my hair, I get to tell them about my fabulous friend, Nicole.

And now, fabulous Nicole has fabulous Estel, a one year old French Bulldog with some pretty awesome attitude! After shooting her “newborn” session when she was 10 weeks old (we make an exception to the 7 day rule when we work with animals) where Nicole fashioned a Lada Gaga-esque wiglet-bow, I knew her first birthday would be pretty much epic.

So she rented Dogwood Park (next to Lake Bow Wow and Barkingham Woods, yes seriously) and invited all of Estel’s puppy friends (again, yes, seriously) and we spent a Sunday afternoon frolicking in the mud and eating cake.

Let’s start with sweet Estel at 10 weeks….